6.1 Evidence Flashcards
The traditional and the new media
Concentration of media ownership in the USA
Bagdikian
- In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the majority of news media in the USA
- By 1992, 22 companies owned and operated 90% of the mass media
- By 2014, United States media ownership was concentrated mainly in the hands of six companies: Comcast, Disney, 21st Century Fox/ News Corporation, Time Warner and Viacom
Concentration of media ownership in the UK
Deloitte media metrics
In the United Kingdom in 2017 10 companies received 70% of the revenue generated by all media companies, and 40 companies received 92% of all of the revenue
Cross media ownership
example
Fininvest, the media company owned by the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. It has a diverse range of interests that include television, book, newspaper and magazine publishing. In terms of new media, Amazon, the world’s largest bookseller, has diversified its interests over the last few years into areas such as publishing and distributing moving image media.
2018 Web Server Survey
Netcraft
Netcraft is an internet services company based in the United Kingdom that attempts, amongst other things, to determine how
many websites there are – in effect, how big the internet is.
In August 1995, when it first did this, there were just fewer than 20,000 host names, which at the time was considered a fairly accurate reflection of the number of websites.
By February 2018, the most recent survey when this book was being written, there were 180,998,238 active websites with 214,036,874 unique domain names and 1,838,596,056 host names. This was 12.8 million websites more than a year earlier. The very high figure of host
names shows how many websites are automated or disused.
Netcraft also provide information on phishing attacks and other
cybercrime. Netcraft says that over 42.6 million unique phishing sites have been detected and blocked by Netcraft’s community.
Overall, Netcraft’s research provides an overview of the remarkable growth of the internet.
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch is an American business magnate, investor, and media proprietor. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including in the UK (The Sun and The Times), in Australia (The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, and The Australian), in the US (The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post), book publisher HarperCollins, and the television broadcasting channels Sky News Australia and Fox News (through the Fox Corporation). He was also the owner of Sky (until 2018), 21st Century Fox (until 2019), and the now-defunct News of the World. With a net worth of US$21.7 billion as of 2 March 2022, Murdoch is the 31st richest person in the United States and the 71st richest in the world according to Forbes magazine.
China and Media control
China censors both the publishing and viewing of online material. Many controversial events are censored from news coverage, preventing many Chinese citizens from knowing about the actions of their government, and severely restricting freedom of the press. China’s censorship includes the complete blockage of various websites, apps, video games, inspiring the policy’s nickname, the Great Firewall of China, which blocks websites.
Amnesty International states that China has “the largest recorded number of imprisoned journalists and cyber-dissidents in the world” and Reporters Without Borders stated in 2010 and 2012 that “China is the world’s biggest prison for netizens.” Freedom House rated China “Not Free” in the Freedom on the Net 2023 report.
Commonly alleged user offenses include communicating with organized groups abroad, signing controversial online petitions, and forcibly calling for government reform. The government has escalated its efforts to reduce coverage and commentary that is critical of the regime after a series of large anti-pollution and anti-corruption protests. Many of these protests were organized or publicized using instant messaging services, chat rooms, and text messages. China’s Internet police force was reported by official state media to be 2 million strong in 2013.
Internet censorship in China has been called “a panopticon that encourages self-censorship through the perception that users are being watched. “On 16 March 2002, the Internet Society of China, a self-governing Chinese Internet industry body, launched the Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the Chinese Internet Industry, an agreement between the Chinese Internet industry regulator and companies that operate sites in China. In signing the agreement, web companies pledge to identify and prevent the transmission of information that Chinese authorities deem objectionable, including information that “breaks laws or spreads superstition or obscenity”, or that “may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability”. As of 2006, the pledge had been signed by more than 3,000 entities operating websites in China.
Internet platforms like Sina and QQ are not authorized to broadcast news or conduct interviews. In practice, such platforms do so with self-constraint, avoiding publicizing news which could run counter to the government.
British Daily Mail
Decline in old media?
The British Daily Mail, for example, has falling numbers of readers of the print edition in the UK but is the most visited newspaper site in the world, with around 50 million visitors each month.
